CASH CRUNCH STYMIES ROAD-CONNECT WORK

Escondido officials say they don’t have nearly enough money to break ground this year on the long-awaited Citracado Parkway “connector” road that would improve access to the new Palomar Medical Center and reduce traffic congestion on state Route 78.

The shortfall — estimated at $16.4 million of the road’s $35 million price tag — has prompted city officials to explore narrowing the proposed four-lane street extension or delaying construction by several years. The half-mile stretch of road had been scheduled to open in early 2015.

Without that link, patients and emergency vehicles must take a circuitous route to the new hospital from the south. And hospital officials say they’ll have to scrap plans for future expansion if the road is never built.

In addition, construction of the connector road was expected to increase momentum behind filling a second gap in Citracado farther south near Interstate 15. The gaps in Citracado have prompted some to call it North County’s most notoriously confusing road.

Escondido recently applied for a federal infrastructure grant that could cover most of the funding gap and allow construction to begin on schedule this year.

But just 5 percent of applications to TIGER, which stands for Transit Investment Generating Economic Recovery, receive funding. Only one of the 218 projects selected since the program began in 2009 was in San Diego County — $20 million for the Interstate 805/state Route 905 interchange in Otay Mesa.

Ed Domingue, Escondido’s public works director, called the gap in funding for the Citracado project regrettable but unavoidable. He said the sharply escalating cost of the road, which was estimated at less than $25 million just a few years ago, was the result of many construction hurdles.

Those include the need to acquire more land than anticipated, the discovery of Native American remains along the route, and the presence of multiple endangered birds in the area.

Because the road would connect two previously built portions of Citracado — one between state Route 78 and Andreasen Drive and another between Del Lago High School and Avenida del Diablo — it can’t be relocated to avoid those problems, Domingue said.

“It has to go in that area, and there’s no wiggle room,” he told City Council members this month.

City officials had planned to combine $13 million contributed by the hospital with money the city receives from Transnet, the county’s half-cent sales tax surcharge for transportation projects. But Domingue said the gap has become too large to cover with Transnet money.

He said options for the city include narrowing the road, making the medians less elaborate, or possibly building the connector in phases. Another option might be money from a Transnet bond scheduled for 2014, he said.

“We think we could build something functional for the hospital within eight years,” he said. “You’ve got to build with what you’ve got in your wallet.”

Councilman Ed Gallo said he was frustrated the city wouldn’t be meeting its commitment to have the road completed in due time for the new hospital, which opened in August.

“The hospital has been open a year, and the road won’t be open in another five years,” he said.

Domingue noted that the city paid to widen Citracado north of the hospital and contributed several millions of dollars to the new Nordahl Road/78 interchange, which improved access to the hospital by reducing congestion.

Mike Shanahan, the hospital’s architect and planner, said those improvements were much appreciated. But he said the connector road remained a high priority.

“Obviously, we’d like to have it sooner rather than later for the convenience of the community, the patients and the staff,” he said. “We gave the city a lot of info for the federal grant because we want to do anything we can to help.”

Shanahan said state environmental regulations regarding traffic would limit the hospital’s total size to 1.8 million square feet, 300,000 square feet less than planned, if the road is never built.

Similarly, Mayor Sam Abed said the absence of the connector road could prevent developers from building business parks planned for the area.

Councilwoman Olga Diaz said the city should consider selling some of the more than 200 properties it owns to pay for the road.